Confronting Internalized Transphobia

My Own and Society's

by Kaci Sullivan

Madison Area Technical College

Confronting Internalized Transphobia

This series emphatically insists on spectrums in a binary world. While I consciously know there isn’t anything wrong with being transgender—that there’s absolutely no shame in it, this knowledge hasn’t protected me from internalizing all the transphobic messages integrated into every aspect of our "progressive" society. Glittering glass slivers, they dig in deep, prepared to stay a lifetime. So I decided to sit with myself. Naked. In front of a mirror and canvas. I would paint my body until it became one grounded, plein-air-inspired stroke after another. Until I accepted that it’s a perfectly valid body. This journey isn’t mine alone. This series challenges viewers to address their own internalized transphobia. To ask themselves again, "What does it mean to be transgender?" or "What does a normal body even look like?" and most importantly "Maybe I should expand how I think about gender and sex."

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